Last
month's grisly murder in Jersey City of HossamArmanious, his wife, Amal, and
two daughters, Sylvia and Monica, remains unsolved. But friends and relatives
of the family are convinced the bloody crime is rooted in a growing wave of
violence and oppression against Christians taking place in Arab countries.

They
may well be right.

The
Armanious family was devoutly Coptic Christian - an
ancient orthodox Egyptian sect that has long suffered from discrimination and
coercion in largely Muslim Egypt. Armanious did
something in America that he
wouldn't dare try in his native Egypt:
He attempted to convert Muslims to Christianity.

That, say
members of the local Coptic community, angered Islamic extremists and led to
the murder.

New
Jersey police say they have no proof it was religious murder and are still
considering robbery among the motives, although Armanious
was far from rich and family jewelry was found untouched in the house.

Hudson
County Prosecutor Edward De Fazio tells me he doesn't
believe it was religious murder, although he also won't rule it out.

Local
Coptic Christians, understandably, think otherwise. The Armanious
family was found bound, gagged and stabbed multiple times - a murder style that
follows a Koranic prescription for ritual execution,
according to Michael Meunier, a representative of the
the U.S. Copts Association.

"This
was no robbery," a frightened-looking New York City Coptic shopkeeper
whispered to me recently. "Arabs did it."

The
fears of our area's Coptic community are even more understandable in light of
what is happening to Christians across the Arab world.

"Christians,
natives of Arab countries, are escaping their countries of origin," says
Iraqi columnist MajidAzaza.
"The reason is the harassment to which they are subjected by government
agencies on the one hand, and extremist groups on the other hand, in countries
they have inhabited for thousands of years."

Azaza
says that Lebanese Christians - once a solid majority - continue to emigrate by
the thousands as a result of the pressures placed upon them by Lebanon's
growing Islamic fundamentalists. In Saudi Arabia, organized Christian
religious worship is outlawed altogether - even for the oil-rich kingdom's
foreign workers.

In Egypt, Copts
say their community is subject to new discrimination in work, even violent
attacks, and the forceful abduction and conversion of their daughters to Islam.
In Palestinian areas, says Azaza, "Christians
are becoming almost extinct."

Thirty
years ago, 70% of the population of the West Bank city of Bethlehem was Christian Arab. Today, the
traditional birthplace of Jesus is more than 70% Muslim.

"People
are afraid not only of the Arab versus Israeli violence, but of Muslim
extremist pressure on us," a Christian businessman told me on a recent
visit. "They want our land, they want our businesses, they
want our children."

In
light of this worldwide persecution, it's time to find out who slaughtered the Armanious family and why.